Amazon says this about the book: In an idyllic small-town neighborhood, a near tragedy triggers a series of dark revelations.

From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.

Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pasts—until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel.

During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it impossible to love and forgive them?

Monday, August 29, 2016

Many, many years ago now, my mom read a book by Ann Howard Creel called The Magic of Ordinary Days and needed to talk about it. In fact, it was this book that inspired the creation of our now long standing summer book club, so when I was offered the chance to read Howard's newest book, I was intrigued. The Whiskey Sea, Howard's latest, is quite different in topic from that earlier novel although it does share some similarities in theme. Like the earlier novel, it would make a wonderful book club choice, begging, as it does, for discussion.

In a small, seaside fishing town not far from New York City, Frieda Hope is the oldest daughter of the town prostitute. No one knows who her father is. When her mother dies, Frieda and her younger sister are left alone in the world until a solitary fisherman named Silver takes them in. Growing up in Silver's care, the girls are cherished and cared for. Frieda is drawn to the sea and wants nothing more than to go out fishing once she's finished with school. She's prickly and defensive, wanting to survive and thrive in a man's world, so when Silver sells the boat she'd hoped to one day own to provide her with the money to go to secretarial school or the like, she is crushed. Even for the love of this crusty old fisherman, she cannot bring herself to give up her dream. Apprenticing with the boat's gentle new owner, she learns to work on engines, earning a reputation as a skilled mechanic. And when she's offered the lucrative job of being the engineer on a bootlegger's boat, it's a position she can't and won't turn down despite the disapproval of those closest to her. It is the only way she can continue to support her sister's academic ambitions and pay for the care that Silver, incapacitated by a stroke, needs. But descending into the illegal world of rum-running changes her life in more than just financial ways, testing her courage, introducing her to an intoxicating love, and revealing things about the past and her own character she might not have wanted to know.

Frieda is a tough character. She knows what she wants and she will bulldoze her way to it if anyone stands in her way. She is unconventional and stubborn and she holds a grudge against the town for their treatment of her mother in life and in death. She tries very hard to minimize her femininity not only because of her desire to do "man's work" but also in an effort to be something other than her mother was. Her damn the torpedoes personality can be a handicap to her when she doesn't consider all of the potential outcomes of her choices, not the people she could hurt, nor how she might hurt herself. But Frieda's character shows a tremendous amount of growth throughout the novel, going from a determinedly unthinking woman to more thoughtful one able to consider others beyond herself. The backdrop of Prohibition and the evolution both of flouting the law and of enforcing the law add a unique and interesting angle to the story. Creel does a good job conveying not only the thrill of the danger but also the sick feeling, the monotony, and the fear that accompanied each and every trip out to pick up contraband. The secondary characters in the novel were foils that highlighted the growing that Frieda was doing but they were charming or interesting in their own right, written briefly but as real people. The novel is a quick read, only bogging down a bit during the love story. Creel weaves in issues of surviving in difficult times, coming of age on one's own terms, and love of many types into the story. This is a compelling read for fans of historical fiction with an interest in the Prohibition and for those who appreciate strong women.

For more information about Ann Howard Creel and the book, check out her webpage. Also, check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
Riverine by Angela Palm
The Other Woman by Therese Bohman
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
I Will Find You by Joanna Connors
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Last Time She Saw Him by Jane Haseldine
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai
The Measure of Darkness by Liam Durcan

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers by Mike Masilamani
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
After the Dam by Amy Hassinger
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Remarkable by Dinah Cox
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
The Inland Sea by Donald Ritchie
The Unseen World by Liz Moore
The Silver Spoon by Kansuke Naka
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith
The Last Weynfeldt by Martin Suter
The Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Bottomland by Michelle Hoover
This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
The Lake by Perrine Leblanc
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
If You Left by Ashley Norton
The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller
And Again by Jessica Chiarella
Man by Kim Thuy
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora
A Good American by Alex George
Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
The Winter War by Philip Teir
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper
Lost and Found by Brooke Davis
Course Correction by Ginny Gilder
Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya
300 Days of Sun by Deborah Lawrenson
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan
The Tsar of Love of Techno by Anthony Marra
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden
Hey Harry, Hey Matilda by Rachel Hulin
The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel

Friday, August 26, 2016

Addiction is such an ugly word. It's a terrible state of being too. But when we acknowledge someone as an addict, unless we are being flip about something completely harmless, we typically mean that their addiction is to something as troubling as alcohol or drugs. Rarely do we think of someone as being addicted to sugar, at least in the strictest definition of the term. But some people are in fact addicted to it and it can be incredibly detrimental to their life, their health, and their well-being. In fact, looking at my own life, I sometimes think I sit balanced precariously on the knife's edge beside sugar addiction myself.

Lisa Kotin doesn't sit on the knife's edge. She is a self-admitted sugar addict and this is her memoir. This is not about how to kick a sugar addiction. This is all about how Lisa has lived with it all of her life and how she continues to live with it. The reader follows Lisa as she details her addiction, as she recounts her family life, the secrets and sneaking and irrational reasoning her addiction drove her to. She tells of the various programs she failed to complete in her attempts to curb the addiction and the programs that failed her. She is no holds barred and unfiltered in telling about the physical effects of sugar addiction on her body. She is open about the hold it had over her life, the binging, the need, and the suffering that was the result. There is nothing sanitized here but there are moments of humor that help to leaven the memoir a bit.

The writing is confessional and sometimes rough. Kotin weaves in the story of her road to becoming an actor and performer as well as her fraught and sometimes dysfunctional love life, and although any addiction impacts all areas of life, these parts exist somewhat uneasily together in this memoir. Generally life isn't so easy and one dimensional that everything can be traced back to one cause. But it is clear that the desire to lay her hands on sugary foods or the mental energy needed to prevent herself from doing so drives much of what she does and thinks. As for many addicts, Kotin takes one step forward and three steps back. This isn't a road map to kick a sugar addiction, this is the story of a decades long, ongoing battle and the end of the memoir reflects that, giving no easy answers and not claiming victory. It's an unusual addiction memoir, one that gave me, with my bag of fun size candy bars tucked away, pause for sure.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Surely everyone who wants to has read this latest entry into the Harry Potter canon by now, right? I actually allowed the two of my children who were interested in it to read it before I did because I was a little ambivalent about the whole thing. With the releases of the last few books, I packed up my then young children and carted them to the midnight launches so they could experience the magic for themselves. But with this one, I didn't really care about the midnight launch, and not just because my children are now older and less awed by such things. I didn't know what to expect and felt as if I had been happy enough with where the Deathly Hallows left the characters and the world. I'll admit the format of the book gave me pause as well. I have never particularly enjoyed reading scripts, firmly believing that their nuances are only showcased in performance and not on the page. But when you are thousands of miles from anywhere the performance can be viewed, you make do. And so I read this. I don't regret it, and maybe there was no way around it, but I was left a little bit underwhelmed. It was fine. It was fine. But I've come to expect magical and this wasn't that.

When I say that this wasn't as magical, I'm not referring to actual magic being performed in the story but about the feeling it gave the reader. The originals were delightful and enchanting while this was a much darker, melancholy feeling read. There were some interesting parallels between young Albus Severus and young Harry in their desire to right wrongs, in their loyalty to a friend, and in their discomfort with unearned fame. These parallels do neatly tie this to the original series but not in the way of a normal sequel. The exploration of the parent child relationship between Harry and Albus was, at times, difficult to read as Harry clearly floundered with this sensitive child. But if Harry as father isn't all the reader could have hoped, the portrayals of the other adults in the novel are hard too. They are underdeveloped and oftentimes nothing but buffoons, still stuck in their own immature school personas.

SPOILER (highlight the below chunk of white in order to read the spoiler)

But the biggest beef I had with the story revolves around two plot threads. First, I find it completely and totally unbelievably out of character to posit the idea that Voldemort would ever have been close enough, even just physically, to anyone to have sired a child. Although Bellatrix would have been the logical witch upon which to get his spawn, he didn't like or trust anyone enough to be that close to him when he would be vulnerable. His character just wasn't drawn that way. Secondly, I don't love alternate histories and so the idea of continually jumping back and forth in time was not all that appealing to me. And the final jump back to Godric's Hollow felt like just one more time for Harry to make things right, to honor sacrifice, and then to make his own for the good of the Wizarding World. But we already knew all this about Harry's character and this felt like a redux, like an unnecessary addition.

END SPOILER

I didn't necessarily want more of Harry Potter but if we were going to go back to that world, and what a world it was, I would have liked the same magical, not melancholy, feel and a stronger connection to the ethos of the other books. Over all it was fine. It was adequate. But it didn't rise to the level of special I would have liked. If you haven't already, read it yourself and let me know what you think. And if you've been lucky enough to see it, let me know if the translation to the stage imbues it with some of what I think is missing on the page.

Amazon says this about the book: With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, “Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.”

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Every now and again there's a story in the news about a man or woman burying a fiance instead of marrying them. These stories are gut-wrenchingly sad and the reader has to wonder how someone goes on after such a loss. How do you build a new life from the ashes? Can you find love again? Do you even want to? Kerry Lonsdale's new novel, Everything We Keep, tackles some of these hard questions in a story of loss, love, mystery, and healing.

Aimee is sitting at her fiance James' funeral on the day they should have been getting married. Gutted by the death of the man she met at the age of twelve and had loved for nearly that long, she can't begin to imagine a life without him. And when a stranger approaches her at the funeral to tell her that James is alive, that he did not disappear and drown on his fishing trip in Mexico, she can't help but wonder what the truth is. Already reeling from the blow of James' death, Aimee receives further bad news when her parents tell her they've had to sell the restaurant where she is the sous chef. Suddenly nothing in her life is as she expected it to be and she must create an entirely new life of her own on her own. Even as she holds onto her memories of her life with James, she finds the courage to open a coffee shop cafe. But to start to think about Ian, an amazing photographer, as more than a friend, even if she is attracted to him, is a bridge too far. Plus there's the niggling idea, fed by a painting on a postcard from a Mexican art gallery, that James could still be alive. Aimee has to decide whether to finally move forward or to keep holding onto the past.

It is hard not to feel sorry for Aimee. She's lost so much. Her grieving is very definitely stuck at the denial stage and Lonsdale has done a nice job showing that while she's outwardly moving on, she is unable to do so emotionally. The first person narration allows the reader to feel alongside Aimee and to understand her reasoning when she has to make difficult decisions. We can feel her indecision about what comes next. The flashbacks to her pre-teen and teen years flesh out her relationship with James so it is clear not only the depth of what she's lost but also the things that she has never understood, especially about the Donato family, despite her long closeness with James. This first person perspective highlights some inconsistencies though, chief among which is Aimee's lack of urgency in following up on her gut feeling about James being alive. The novel's pacing is somewhat uneven, beginning very slowly as Aimee works through her grief but then with the final third of the book offering up all of the action and the answers that Aimee has been searching for. Some of these answers introduce pretty big, troubling, heretofore unexplored bombshells. Problems aside, the novel is a quick and easy read and will keep you turning the pages to find out the resolution. For people who enjoy reading about love, the pain and healing of letting go, and building a new life, this might just fit the bill.

About a war veteran paid to deliver an orphan whose family was killed by Indian raiders and was subsequently raised by the tribe to distant relatives and their fraught path to a tentative bond, this looks amazing.

Light books that contain loved pets: how can you go wrong with a tale like this one about a woman who has returned to her gossipy small town to help care for her mother, who has Alzheimer's, and finds all of the kooky characters she thought she'd left in the past?

Livesey is a pretty amazing writer and I am looking forward to this novel of an optometrist who misses seeing that his wife has changed, wanting to fulfill the youthful dreams of competing horses she gave up, dreams that threaten her life as it is now.

White is ace at creating complex family and relationship novels filled with twists and turns and this one about a woman who ran from her tragic past and her return to face that past even as she is running from a tragedy in her present looks good.

Sometimes a little gothic stuff can be satisfying, especially with fall coming so this novel about a woman who finds the century-old remains of a murder victim on her family's estate should fit that bill perfectly.

When an illegitimate daughter finds that her father is alive, wealthy, and has a legitimate daughter, she insinuates herself into the society they inhabit in order to extract revenge. This sounds completely and totally delicious!

When a book cover asks "The perfect marriage. Or the perfect lie?" it has the potential to be terrifying and heart pounding. This novel with newlyweds who seem perfect but are never apart sounds ominous for sure.

I am a sucker for memoirs about learning a new language or moving abroad so this once about a woman who marries a Frenchman and eventually decides to learn his language should be right in my wheelhouse.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

The Tsar of Love of Techno by Anthony Marra
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
Riverine by Angela Palm
The Other Woman by Therese Bohman
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
I Will Find You by Joanna Connors
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Last Time She Saw Him by Jane Haseldine
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai
Everything We Keep by Kerry Lonsdale

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers by Mike Masilamani
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
After the Dam by Amy Hassinger
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Remarkable by Dinah Cox
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
The Inland Sea by Donald Ritchie
The Unseen World by Liz Moore
The Silver Spoon by Kansuke Naka
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith
The Last Weynfeldt by Martin Suter
The Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Bottomland by Michelle Hoover
This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
The Lake by Perrine Leblanc
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
If You Left by Ashley Norton
The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller
And Again by Jessica Chiarella
Man by Kim Thuy
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora
A Good American by Alex George
Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
The Winter War by Philip Teir
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper
Lost and Found by Brooke Davis
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
Course Correction by Ginny Gilder
Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya
300 Days of Sun by Deborah Lawrenson
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan
The Tsar of Love of Techno by Anthony Marra
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden

Amazon says this about the book: A hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent—and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together

Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he’s just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family’s ancestral lands—and his pride.

Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China.

Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America—and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Big, fat books promising a sweeping epic story (and sequels) can be simultaneously intimidating and intriguing. When done well, they leave a reader wanting more: more from the characters, more of the plot, more of everything. When these sorts of books miss the mark though, it's a hard thing, especially after the time commitment that a reader has given to living in the book's world. Helen Bryan's novel, The Valley, the first in a trilogy based on Bryan's own ancestors, starts off with promise but it doesn't quite deliver on that promise.

The Honorable Sophia Grafton is an English lady. As a child she was indulged and allowed to become an ill-mannered, spoiled brat before being bribed to conform to society's strictures and turned over to her straight-laced godmother to be molded into a marriageable miss. When her father dies, leaving behind enormous debts, Sophia's only recourse, since she has resisted marriage, is to travel to the American Colonies and the one estate left to her. Along the way to this unknown plantation, she collects a whole coterie of people: French spies, a deported Englishman and his two sons, slaves she frees, a young Welsh woman and her half Native-American husband. This odd collection of people will create a settlement, adding more people as they trickle past the trading outpost nearby.

The story starts before the American Revolution and ends with the start of the Trail of Tears. Spanning such a long period of time, the novel is necessarily long but it is uneven in emphasis. The structure is most like a backwards telescope with the beginning elaborately detailed but as the narrative continues, it eventually narrows down to brief snapshots which are only tangentially related to what has gone before. Rather than a daily recounting of life, it becomes a time jumping highlights brief. The cast of secondary characters grows and grows as the story continues and they eventually overtake the story entirely. As the main focus throughout the majority of the novel, Sophia feels anachronistic in her attitudes and actions, especially towards the slaves she meets in her journey. Her attraction to Henri, which has roots early on in the story, never quite seems convincing and it feels like he stays at Wildwood simply out of inertia. And unfortunately inertia describes much of the story. Characters were introduced as important but their parts then fizzled out without much development. The narrative tension is definitely uneven and the ending feels like a scene from a different book entirely. Perhaps this is the set-up for book two but its different feel, new characters, and all new conflict leaves it out of place, tacked on. Despite the problems of the novel, there are some interesting themes introduced into the story: the value of all people, acceptance, survival in a hard land, community, and a mystical Native American thread. This had a lot of potential for chunky historical novel fans but it just didn't live up to that potential.

For more information about Helen Bryan and the book, check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

The Valley by Helen Bryan
Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya
300 Days of Sun by Deborah Lawrenson
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
Riverine by Angela Palm
The Other Woman by Therese Bohman
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
I Will Find You by Joanna Connors
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Last Time She Saw Him by Jane Haseldine
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai
The Tsar of Love of Techno by Anthony Marra

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers by Mike Masilamani
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
After the Dam by Amy Hassinger
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Remarkable by Dinah Cox
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
The Inland Sea by Donald Ritchie
The Unseen World by Liz Moore
The Silver Spoon by Kansuke Naka
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith
The Last Weynfeldt by Martin Suter
The Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Bottomland by Michelle Hoover
This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
The Lake by Perrine Leblanc
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
If You Left by Ashley Norton
The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller
And Again by Jessica Chiarella
Man by Kim Thuy
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora
A Good American by Alex George
Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
The Winter War by Philip Teir
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper
Lost and Found by Brooke Davis
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
Course Correction by Ginny Gilder
The Valley by Helen Bryan
Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya
300 Days of Sun by Deborah Lawrenson
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Have you ever joked about a work spouse? You know, the person you spend so much time with at work that you jokingly say you see them more often than your actual spouse? So many people have a work wife or work husband but how many have a work nemesis? In Sally Thorne's cute, new rom-com novel, The Hating Game, the two main characters are work rivals, opposites, office-sharing nemeses who must compete for the same job. This is either the recipe for love or for a terrible mess.

Lucy and Joshua are both executive assistants. Their respective publishing companies have merged and the two of them are sharing an office while the co-CEOs try to figure out how to merge two such different corporate cultures. That Lucy and Joshua hate each other makes the office tense. That they both want the newly announced position, which would be a huge promotion and would make one of them the other's boss, makes things more than tense. They play petty games with each other, make sniping comments, report each other to HR for policy infractions, adjust their work hours to try and outstay each other, and generally try to discomfit the other. They seem to be complete opposites in terms of personality as well. Lucy is quirky, bubbly, and endearing and she craves everyone's approval. She grew up on a strawberry farm and collects Smurfs. Joshua is reserved and aloof; he's corporate-minded and doesn't care if people like him. They really are like chalk and cheese. Until they aren't anymore. They've always been hyper-attentive to each other (she notices his shirt color rotation; he notices when she smiles) but strangely, it takes the competition for the promotion to make them more aware of each other as good people rather than the enemy. Once they start to fall for each other, opening themselves up and making themselves vulnerable to each other, the question is whether this contested promotion will keep them from the relationship it is clear they should have or if they can get past it to be together.

The novel is light and fluffy although it does briefly touch on the idea of chasing your dream and the importance of having supportive people and family behind you. Lucy and Joshua end up being likable characters although they start off as annoying and childish as middle schoolers. The novel is told entirely from Lucy's perspective and she can come across as immature and silly at times, especially when she's busy disliking Joshua. The first person narration makes it a little strange that she mentions several times how tiny she is with comments about her diminutive paws and the like. The romance dominates the plot with the work drama being much more secondary and although this isn't quite a fully fledged romance novel, the eventual sex scenes are fairly detailed so non-romance readers should be warned about that. Over all, it is a quick and cute, if rather predictable, beachy kind of read.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Lost and Found by Brooke Davis
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
Course Correction by Ginny Gilder

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
Riverine by Angela Palm
The Other Woman by Therese Bohman
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
I Will Find You by Joanna Connors
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Last Time She Saw Him by Jane Haseldine
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan
The Valley by Helen Bryan

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers by Mike Masilamani
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
After the Dam by Amy Hassinger
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Remarkable by Dinah Cox
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
The Inland Sea by Donald Ritchie
The Unseen World by Liz Moore
The Silver Spoon by Kansuke Naka
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith
The Last Weynfeldt by Martin Suter
The Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Bottomland by Michelle Hoover
This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
The Lake by Perrine Leblanc
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
If You Left by Ashley Norton
The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller
And Again by Jessica Chiarella
Man by Kim Thuy
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora
A Good American by Alex George
Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
The Winter War by Philip Teir
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper
Lost and Found by Brooke Davis
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
Course Correction by Ginny Gilder

Amazon says this about the book: In this beautifully written and powerful debut novel, Ella Joy Olsen traces the stories of five fascinating women who inhabit the same historic home over the course of a century—braided stories of love, heartbreak and courage connect the women, even across generations.

Ivy Baygren has two great loves in her life: her husband, Adam, and the bungalow they buy together in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Salt Lake City, Utah. From the moment she and Adam lay eyes on the home, Ivy is captivated by its quaint details—the old porch swing, ornate tiles, and especially an heirloom rose bush bursting with snowy white blossoms. Called the Emmeline Rose for the home’s original owner, it seems yet another sign that this place will be Ivy’s happily-ever-after…Until her dreams are shattered by Adam’s unexpected death.

Striving to be strong for her two children, Ivy decides to tackle the home-improvement projects she and Adam once planned. Day by day, as she attempts to rebuild her house and her resolve, she uncovers clues about previous inhabitants, from a half-embroidered sampler to buried wine bottles. And as Ivy learns about the women who came before her—the young Mormon torn between her heart and anti-polygamist beliefs, the Greek immigrant during World War II, a troubled single mother in the 1960s—she begins to uncover the lessons of her own journey. For every story has its sadness, but there is also the possibility of blooming again, even stronger and more resilient than before.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Can you imagine a world rent apart by war two generations in a row? As hard as it is to imagine sitting here in my current comfortable American existence, this was indeed the case for the US and Europe just a couple of generations ago. World War I was followed closely by World War II, decimating generations and changing the face of many families forever. Alix Rickloff's new novel, Secrets of Nanreath Hall, set in Britain, takes place in the shadow of both wars. And both wars permanently change the trajectory of one family, forcing long held secrets to the surface.

Lady Katherine Trenowyth is a beautiful, headstrong young woman who chafes at her expected life. She wants to study to be an artist, not just dabble in painting while gracing the arm of some approved, socially equal husband. When her father, the Earl, commissions portraits of the family, she falls in love with the artist's assistant and ultimately runs away with him, heedless of the consequences of her actions. Her impetuosity doesn't quite turn out as she imagined and her early death from cancer orphans her small daughter, Anna. As an adult, all Anna knows about her father is that he was a soldier who died in WWI without ever marrying her mother. Illegitimate, Anna has never been acknowledged by her mother's family but when she is posted to Nanreath Hall, her mother's childhood home, as a VAD, she runs to her adoptive parents to discuss the posting with them. Unfortunately Graham and Prue have been killed in the bombing leveling so much of London, taking their knowledge of her origins to the grave with them. Anna is alone in the world with no choice but to go to her post and to face the few remaining family members still living at Nanreath Hall. Her welcome there is quite frosty and she stays as busy as possible working in the hospital wings of the house, avoiding the family if she can. But she is determined to discover as much as she can about her history and as she digs deeper, deeply buried secrets and scandals come to light.

The novel moves back and forth in time chapter by chapter, from Lady Katherine (Kitty) to Anna Trenowyth. Because of this, the reader knows Kitty's story long before Anna does, although there are still some revelations saved to the very end of the novel. Anna is a much stronger character than her mother is. The narration of the chapters about Anna is snappier and more complete and the reader feels closer to her as a result. Some of the secondary characters have interesting stories themselves and they are fleshed out to varying degrees. There is a strong romantic element to the novel and the idea of what it means to love and how are certainly themes threaded through the narrative. The most encompassing theme though, is that of identity, both as it is determined personally and as it is conferred upon a person. Kitty ran away to be a person her family could never conceive of (or accept). Anna is still forging her identity throughout the narrative as she searches for the truth of her existence and as she absorbs her own personal tragedies of war. The secrets of Nanreath Hall don't turn out to be terribly surprising in the end but the predictability is forgivable since the story is otherwise engaging. Fans of historical fiction, and especially those who have a penchant for stories set during the world wars or who are Anglophiles, will enjoy this tale of family, lies, forgiveness, and loyalty.

Monday, August 1, 2016

The Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
Riverine by Angela Palm
The Other Woman by Therese Bohman
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
I Will Find You by Joanna Connors
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Last Time She Saw Him by Jane Haseldine
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai
The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers by Mike Masilamani
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
After the Dam by Amy Hassinger
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Education of a Poker Player by James McManus
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Remarkable by Dinah Cox
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
The Inland Sea by Donald Ritchie
The Unseen World by Liz Moore
The Silver Spoon by Kansuke Naka
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
The Honeymoon by Dinitia Smith
The Last Weynfeldt by Martin Suter
The Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Bottomland by Michelle Hoover
This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
The Lake by Perrine Leblanc
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
If You Left by Ashley Norton
The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller
And Again by Jessica Chiarella
Man by Kim Thuy
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora
A Good American by Alex George
Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
The Winter War by Philip Teir
The Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
This Side of Providence by Sally M. Harper

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About Me

A voracious reader, fledgling runner, and full time kiddie chauffeur.
If anyone out there wants to send me books for review (oh please don't fro me in that briar patch!), you can contact me at whitreidsmama (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you do write me there, put the blog name in the subject line or I'm liable to send the unread message to spam. My book review policy can be found here.